Thursday, May 18, 2017

Lincoln Ch 3-4 by H. T.

In Abraham Lincoln chapters 3 and
4, author George McGovern details the many controversial choices
Lincoln made throughout the Civil War and the changes in his thinking as
he gained war and presidential experience. McGovern provided evidence
through explaining the events that occurred. For example, President
Lincoln revoked Habeas Corpus, and allowed for civilians to be arrested
without reason or trial. This was a very controversial decision as many
felt as though it went against the Bill of Rights and was not legal.
Many men were arrested for reporting their opinions or for reporting
false information, a crime you’d otherwise never hear a word from the
law for. Another controversial decision he made was the decision to form
the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln initially had no intentions of
writing such a document that could free the slaves from bondage. He
initially believed that the institution of Slavery, while horrible,
should not be removed, just be limited. The idea was flirted with after
the North won a battle in the South and the general at the time had
attempted to free the slaves there as a victory of the North, but
Lincoln forbid, it, saying that was not the goal of the war. Eventually
he came to the conclusion that the slaves needed to be freed once he
believed that it would help assist the North in winning the war. Once he
did this, he declared all the slaves free, an action he wasn’t entirely
sure would even hold up in court. Lincoln experienced many different
difficulties throughout the war and made many controversial decisions
that, at the time, were commonly seen as going too far. His goal of these writings are to
inform the reader of how the Civil War evolved, as did Abraham Lincoln,
as the war continued. The voices he used in his attempt to tell this
story were those of Lincoln himself, government officials, and citizens
of both the North and the South. Most voices heard not named Lincoln
were of those whom often doubted, or disagreed with, President Abraham
Lincoln. This were to illustrate the fact that it wasn’t as easy as
North vs South, and Lincoln faced conflict from both sides of the war.
Voices we didn’t hear of were those which were fighting in the war. We
rarely heard what was going on the ground in these places, and what the
military officials had thought of Lincoln’s decisions.The handout, which was first
inauguration speech that Abraham Lincoln gave, gave me plenty of insight
as to how Lincoln evolved from before the war to during and after the
war. Before the war, it was apparent that he had no intention of
abolishing slavery, and his only goal was to prevent the secession of
more states into the confederacy. His goal was to compromise with those
of the South to create peace, while acknowledging the anger that the
South felt over his election. Once Lincoln was faced with the actual
war, Lincoln changed his mind on plenty of topics and most of what
Lincoln said during his inauguration speech was no longer relevant as
his only goal became to rejoin the union together again, and he was
willing to take any action in order to do so.Some questions that we posed about
Abraham Lincoln resembled that of “how did Lincoln expand his powers as
president during his time in office?” A conclusion we gathered from our
discussion and the reading was that Lincoln used the fact that he was in
war to justify the extreme action he were taking within his own
government in an attempt to win the war. This allowed him to commit what
some considered crimes such as revoking Habeas Corpus, declaring all
slaves free with one signing of the pen and waging war on what was his
own country as he did not believe that secession was legal and the
Southern States were still technically part of the United States. He did
this all in the name of bringing together the union to be one united
nation once again.Some questions I had were those such
as did the South’s elected president break any similar laws during the
course of the war, perhaps in an effort to claim victory and properly
declare its independence? Another question I had was how would the
Founding Fathers of America see Lincoln’s actions? As brave and
intelligent? Or cowardly and evil?